


found a keeper

by SmittyJaws



Series: modern times (rock and roll) [5]
Category: Queen (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Asexual Character, Asexual Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, ace!Deaky, ace!OFC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:27:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25493074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmittyJaws/pseuds/SmittyJaws
Summary: Six months in, John thinks he might actually have found someone worth keeping.
Relationships: John Deacon/Original Female Character(s)
Series: modern times (rock and roll) [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1416850
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	found a keeper

**Author's Note:**

> Boy, it’s been a while ~~(9 months)~~ since I posted some ace!Deaky content. Tbh, since the last one bombed so badly, I really hadn’t been feeling like writing anything for this AU, so I detoured off into my other myriad AUs and projects for a while. But someone asked about this AU in April, so I managed to write this! It’s a short one, but I think it’s cute ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ originally partially posted for my April fic calendar on Tumblr.

John’s never been happier. His close friendship and shy first few dates with Jay have progressed on to them deciding to make it official, and they’ve been dating for six months now, settled into a comfortable routine. He’s met her parents, she’s met his mum, and while they can’t be fully out to her parents about being ace, they seem to like him otherwise, which is nice.

Even Karen hasn’t popped up for a while, surprisingly. She has a tendency to turn up like a bad penny, or at least she used to, but John hasn’t seen her for a while, and quite frankly, he’s okay with that.

He decides to surprise Jay by taking her out for coffee on a break from her work today, as it’s been exactly six months for them. While neither of them can afford anything remotely resembling anything like a date at the moment, coffee for his girlfriend is something he figures he can spare a couple of pounds for. (John wonders if all bands seem to sink money like a whirlpool at first, because even without his tuition fees he’s never been more broke.)

Sure enough, she’s pleased to see him when he stops by the museum right as her break starts, and asks him what the occasion is.

“Can’t I stop by and see you?” John gives her a smile as they walk down the street hand in hand, to which Jay just raises an eyebrow at him. “What? I can be spontaneous.”

“You can, but I don’t think that’s why you came out here today.” Jay gives him a knowing look. “Is it because it’s been six months?”

...she knows him too well. And she remembered too! Even though John knows it’s the stereotype for men to be the ones not remembering dates, he can’t help but remember back to when he’d been dating Karen, and she hadn’t ever seemed to care about those milestones unless he did something significant for her (usually consisting of her trying to convince him that _this_ one was one that warranted sex, right?)

“...it might be.”

“You’re so obvious,” Jay teases, before her gaze softens, giving his hand a small squeeze. “But that’s alright. I’m happy to see you regardless.”

“I’m always happy to see you, too,” John replies, before opening the door to the coffeeshop and gesturing for Jay to enter.

Luck’s on his side today; the queue is short, the drink he wants is half off, and Jay’s managed to snag them the last free table. He’ll get to spend a nice time with Jay (before she has to go back to work, anyway) and nothing can go wrong.

And then, of course, it does.

He’s making his way back with the drinks in hand, weaving through the crowded tables when it happens; someone pushes their chair out and stands up, and though he thought he had avoided it, he’s miscalculated, and he bumps into the man, sending him sprawling. Coffee spills everywhere, staining his shirt and jeans from where he’s fallen into a puddle of his own mess, and while he knows he won’t have more than a few bruises later, John is mortified.

A staff member comes along to mop up the mess, and the gentleman who he’s bumped into isn’t making a fuss (likely because nothing got on him), but all John can do is stand there dumbly, watching the smear of whipped cream and syrup from Jay’s drink mingling with the foam from his own drink slide around on the floor, both of them ruined.

He can’t even afford new ones either; not if he wants to buy groceries tomorrow. It’s bad enough that he eats a lot of microwave ramen because it’s cheap, but it’s worse to go without. So not only can he not actually buy her anything anymore, but now he’s covered in stained clothes and looking like an inept idiot. Happy six months, indeed.

As if deciding that now is a great time to add on to his failures, his brain decides that it’s time to replay the memory of the last time something like this had happened— when he was dating Karen.

It hadn’t even been this bad, either; a bit of beer sloshing out of a glass in his hand and onto his shirt after someone had jostled his shoulder at a party (that she’d insisted they go to), but Karen had sighed and complained about how it was going to appear, some of her other friends giggling in the background. “It looks like I’m dating an incompetent, John, honestly,” she’d huffed. “You need to be more careful.”

And he’d apologized, he really had, but she’d brought it up for weeks afterwards, making little jabs about him being clumsy, and honestly John doesn’t know how that hadn’t been a red flag for their relationship long before he’d discovered her cheating on him. And now, he’s done worse; made an _actual_ huge mess, making others have to clean up after him, and leaving him with stained clothes and a ruined date.

Oh God. He doesn’t want to know what Jay’s reaction will be. She’ll be upset, he’s sure; he knows she’s said that having something to eat or drink on her break is what gets her through the second half of her shift, and now, she won’t have that. What she _does_ have, is a clumsy boyfriend who’s made himself look like a fool in the middle of a crowded coffeeshop.

He stays frozen for a moment, watching as the staff member mops up the mess, and trying to think of what to do, when he feels a hand on his arm. “Hey, you alright?”

John looks over, and it’s Jay— so much for delaying finding out what her reaction will be. He flinches slightly, trying to brace himself, to prepare for what’s sure to be a disappointed lecture.

But it never comes. “I saw you fall; it looked like it hurt,” Jay continues, looking him over. “Is everything alright?”

_‘Is everything alright?’_ That’s a loaded question. He’s not seriously injured, true, but the fact still remains that he’s effectively ruined their date and tossed his money down the drain. He nods slowly, though, not wanting Jay to think he’s ignoring her. “Yeah. Nothing injured but my pride.”

“Oh, good.” Jay relaxes slightly, but John’s still waiting for the other shoe to drop; for her to lecture him on his clumsiness and for embarrassing her, or to have a laugh at how ridiculous he undoubtedly looked. (He idly notices that they’ve also lost their table at this point, because of _course_ they have.)

But she doesn’t lecture. Or laugh. She looks mournfully at the spilled drinks for a brief moment, but otherwise her focus is solely on John. “That’ll be a nasty stain later on,” she observes, indicating his shirt. “Do you have stain remover?”

“No.” It’s a shame; he liked this shirt. But the only one he knows who’d have some is Freddie, and he knows Freddie ran out recently and had been complaining about needing to buy more. So he’s out of luck.

“I can take it if you want.”

“You— you will?”

“Well, not _now_ , obviously.” Jay nods. “But my roommate Blanche is an absolute wizard at clothing repair and stain removal, and if anyone can have it looking normal again, it’ll be her.”

“Oh. Th-thank you.”

He’s not sure what to say now; Jay has to go back to work soon, and they’re just standing around awkwardly in the middle of the shop. And she still doesn’t seem upset. How is she not upset?

As if sensing his thoughts, she gives him a gentle elbow to the side before taking his hand in her own. “Don’t worry about it, alright?” she murmurs. “Accidents happen.”

“But... but I ruined things. You don’t get a drink now, and now you have to go back to work,” he protests. “...and I looked stupid.”

“It was an _accident_ ,” Jay repeats, more firmly this time as they leave the coffeeshop, starting their walk back to the museum. “I’m just glad you’re alright. You could have hit your head on the way down, and then what?”

That’s... slightly more morbid than he was expecting, but John’s touched. “I just wanted to have a nice time with you,” he sighs. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. It’s not like you planned it,” Jay insists, squeezing his hand in her own before releasing it as they return to the museum. “Anyway. Come by tonight with the dirty laundry and we can take care of it then, alright? We can watch movies or something while it runs.”

“Alright.” He nods, and Jay beams, leaning in to kiss his cheek before she has to go, waving back at him before she goes into the building.

John watches her leave, and he’s still slightly in shock; not once had she poked fun at him, or told him he was an embarrassment. She’d _worried_ about him, and offered to help. He feels a surge of that same warm fuzzy feeling he always feels around Jay make a reappearance, and thinks that if his mother were here, she’d probably tell him that he’s found himself a keeper.

As he begins the walk back to his car to head home, he thinks his mother might just be right; he doesn’t want to let Jay go.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm also @smittyjaws on Tumblr!


End file.
